Mass Prep Sunday September 30

Sunday September 30^th, 2018    26^th Sunday Ordinary Time (Cycle B)

Cut It Out!

The tie in between today’s readings: How do you view sin?

Numbers 11:25-29, Psalm 19:8-14, James 5:1-6, Mark 9:38-50

     A person’s view of sin is a good indicator of their attitude about salvation. Ever since Adam tried to pass the buck in the Garden by telling God that the woman He (God) gave him caused him to eat the forbidden fruit. (Gen 3:12), we’ve all looked for ways to rationalize our failures. We blame our environment, our heredity, or society. We compare ourselves to others and proudly soothe our conscience by taking a higher position in our moral pecking order. “I know I’m not perfect, but I’m better than so and so.” We cling to our relative moral standard and elevated estimation of our own goodness. This leads to an easy believism in the church and no appreciation of the crucifixion. It’s almost as if Jesus died to save us from bad habits.  On the contrary, a serious evaluation of our transgressions against the perfect standard of a holy God is devastating. At this point, we not only realize that we need a savior, but we become desperate to find one. When we do, He gives us a new life in Himself and forgives us by removing our sins as far as the east is from the west. We love Him, because whoever is forgiven much, then loves much in return.  True, after all is said and done, both types of people still sin. The authentic born again person, though, struggles against his sin nature… the other, not so much. Why fix something that really isn’t broken?  The difference is all in the attitude.

     In Psalm 19, David asks God not to let presumptuous sin rule over him.  This is the “jump off the Temple” kind of sin Satan tempted Jesus with. It presumes on God and forces His hand, placing us in charge.  This kind of grace-abuse is familiar in the pews. We call it: Carnal Christianity.  It is a contradiction of terms and an anesthetizing cancer in our churches. This “Carnal Christian” thinks salvation is a policy from the “The Jehovah Fire and Life Insurance Company”.  When Christ died on the cross, He paid the premiums for everyone in the whole world.  All you have to do to be saved is to recognize a good deal when you see one. C’mon down!  It’s free! We’ll baptize you on the dotted line. Thank You, Jesus!  There’s no compulsion to pray. Read the Bible or grow in grace…why? When was the last time you dug your policy out of the drawer? When you sin, you’re just placing another claim with God, as you cite: 1 John 1:8-9 and maybe throw in a little, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”  The Carnal Christian needs to wake up before it’s too late. He needs to examine himself to see if he really is in the faith. The nature of your born again life requires that you forsake your sin and become more like Jesus. If you won’t; if you just want to go along your merry way, like the rich church people in James 5, file your sin claims, abuse and presume on the grace from on High, then God has an answer: “I never knew you.”

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     In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us that everyone will be salted with fire in Mark 9:49. I want to use this as an illustration of salvation against my earlier insurance policy example. Among other things salt is connected with judgment; remember Lot’s wife. Fire is as well. I believe these are judgment metaphors.  John the Baptist said that Jesus will come and baptize believers with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Matt 3:11, Luke 3:16). Then, you have that strange scene when Jesus asks James and John if they could be baptized with His baptism and drink His cup. They said yes. Jesus agrees that they would (Mark 10:35-40, Matt 20:22-23). I think that this is a baptism by fire that Jesus and all believers, in this case James and John, go through for salvation. When Jesus drinks the cup at Gethsemane we, in a spiritual sense, drink our sin portion with Him. Then we are baptized by fire (or judged) spiritually along with Jesus through the crucifixion. We have passed through the judgment of God. We die with Him and are spiritually born again with Him when He resurrects on Easter Sunday.  Salvation is personal and intimate. If I live, you will live also. The Holy Spirit helps us to grow in our new life conforming us to the image of His Son. Go and sin no more…well, at least make that your goal.

     There is support in this new life. God provides an escape route when temptation comes along. He also gives us each other to lean on when things get difficult, as seen in Numbers 11. So if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off.  Stop playing with sin. It has no place in your life. Get an appreciation for, “This is My body given for you.” We are more than conquerors in Jesus.

   

Mass Prep Sunday September 23

Sunday September 23^rd, 2018   25^th Sunday Ordinary Time (Cycle B)

What kind of person are you?

The tie in between today’s readings: Pride vs. Humility

Wisdom 2:12-20, Psalm 54:1-8, James 3:16 - 4:10, Mark 9:30-37

     The Bible shows us that God is all about relationships. The Almighty is concerned with our standing with Him and how we treat each other. In today’s readings, we see three kinds of people: the atheist who doesn’t know God, the church-goer who thinks he knows God, and those that God knows. Let’s look at the categories, see where the shoe fits, and find out how a believer should react.

     In the book of Wisdom, we see how an atheist thinks. Because he believes that there is no God, then life is meaningless. Eat! Drink! And be merry for tomorrow we die! He is wise in his own eyes because he mocks the unproven superstitions of religion. Instead, he embraces the gospel of Star Trek. He is tolerant to everyone except the religious person who holds to absolutes concerning right and wrong. By their very existence they condemn the atheist’s world view without a word. Short of inventing a god-o-meter, the only thing a righteous person can do is to live with integrity!  A life filled with solid reasoning, care for others, and solid prayer; this is a spiritual battle (Psalm 54).

 

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     The person who thinks that he knows God is self deceived: a Pharisee. It’s all pride! (I must be careful at this stage because I may be one of these people myself.) This person keeps God in a container between his ears. He remakes the Almighty in his own image.  He believes all that he wants is good and prays to God the genie to rubberstamp his desires. We know that this is true because of today’s epistle. James is taking the CHURCH to task because of their self-centered carnality. The gospel reading also touches on it when the apostles argue over who is the greatest among them. James gives the remedy to this situation. He tells us to reject our pride, confess our sins, and submit to God (James 4:6-10). You have to see yourself as the Pharisee before you can confess as the tax collector. 

     A relationship with God turns our world upside down. The greater serves the lesser. The first shall be last. When you think that you are really something...you’re nothing. That’s why we need to be like children before Him. We have to see ourselves as having no rights, no strength, and maybe a little dumb. We have no hope in ourselves and nothing to offer but dependency and trust to the One who can take care of us. When He does accept us in His beloved Son, He gives us His Spirit, which then leads us to call God our Father. Just as a child plays dress up with their parents clothes, we show that we love Him; more importantly, that we are in love with Him, by imitating Him. Whoever loves God is known by God. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Mass Prep Sunday September 16th

Sunday September 16, 2018   24^th Sunday Ordinary Time (Cycle B)

Crosses Required

The tie in between today’s readings: Listen!

Psalm 116:1-9, Isaiah 50:5-9, James 2:14-18, Mark 8:27-35

     Let’s eavesdrop in on the conversation in today’s gospel.  “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ”. And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matt 16: 17). Bravo, Peter!  As the gospel continues, Jesus began again to teach them about His upcoming death and resurrection. Peter, the now self appointed “smartest kid in the class”, takes Jesus aside to set Him straight.  Jesus rebukes him, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interest, but man’s” (Mark 8:33b). After being at the apex with his confession of Jesus, why did Peter then crash and burn? It all has to do with listening. In making his confession, Peter listens to God, in the second part he does not.  Sensing everyone’s anxiety, Jesus explains that to follow Him everyone must take up their own cross.  In other words: listen. Thy will be done is paramount in anyone’s walk with God. Faith requires that we listen to God when He doesn’t make sense.  But then, why have faith if you can’t test it?

      Isaiah 50 contains Messianic prophesies pointing to the crucifixion. In them, Jesus shows that He is listening and will go the distance to fulfill the Father’s will. This is no easy thing. The Bible is full of prophesies of Christ as the suffering servant. Jesus knows them all and is acutely aware of what’s coming. In light of this, you have to wonder how He was even able to sleep at night. I’m sure that it was not unusual for Him to bolt up out of bed in a cold sweat, pale and sucking air from yet another nightmare. Still, He goes to the cross because God is His Father. Their intimate relationship gives Jesus a confident faith. His Father loves Him and can keep Him. Jesus spent many a night in prayer because He knows that the God that He listens to is also listening to Him (Psalm 116). The apostle Paul puts it this way: For this reason I suffer all these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day (2 Timothy 1:12). He trusts in the promises of glory and triumph that await Him beyond His ordeal. Because of this, along with the nightmares of suffering, Jesus can dream “The Impossible Dream” and in following His example so can we.

     There is another lesson in listening to God that is picked up in James 2: 14-18. Because we are so busy with our own lives, we often miss it. I call it: God put you in my way. It is a line from the movie, The Four Feathers, not the old one, the 2002 version. In the movie an Englishman (Heath Ledger) is rescued and aided in his quest to save his friends by a black mystic. When asked why he is helping, the mystic says, “I have no choice. God put you in my way.” Personal piety is important part of listening to God in the Christian life, but our faith becomes genuine in the world when we help someone in need. Let’s look and listen for opportunities from God for the people that He puts in our way and besides just saying, “I’ll pray for you”; make them a pot roast too.

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     To conclude: God loves you as you are, but loves you too much to leave you as you are. Crosses are required! He wants you to carry the image of Jesus in your life. God will guide you by His still small voice, by scripture, or when He puts someone in your way. Go with it! He that began a good work in you will finish it (Philippians 1:6). But, you need to listen.

Mass Prep Sunday September 9th 23rd Sunday Ordinary Time (Cycle B)

Sunday September 9, 2018   23^rd Sunday Ordinary Time

I’ve Got Good News and Bad News

The tie in between today’s readings: “…by His wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5)

Psalm 146:7-10, Isaiah 35:4-7, James 2:1-5, Mark 7:31-37

     Today’s readings, Psalm 146, Isaiah 35, and Mark 7, all focus on God as a healer. Let’s be clear from the start: Jesus does not do tricks. All of the healing accounts in the Bible actually did happen, but miracles are not recorded for their own sakes. They are metaphors pointing to the nature of salvation through the gospel. Jesus pulls this together in Matt 11:4-5, where He associates His healings with the preaching of the gospel. So what is the gospel? Other than saying that it is the good news, could you explain it clearly to someone who doesn’t know? Sadly, most of the people in the pews cannot. I’ve best understood the gospel message by the old line: “I’ve got good news and bad news.” So, today let’s drill down and get a better understanding of it by examining the most quoted verse on the gospel, John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

     First the good news: God so loved the world. Stop! Don’t gloss over this. This is a big deal. In our pride and self absorption, we can easily take God’s love for granted. Why wouldn’t He love me? I love me! I may not be perfect, but what’s not to love? The thing is that our sins have made us so odious to the celestial realm that, if we were to walk into heaven right now, the angels would vomit. We start out as the enemy of God in our sin: loathsome, pitiful, and hideous. But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

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     That He gave His only begotten Son. That’s the “died for us” part of the gospel. Jesus came, born to die, as the sacrificial Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. This is where the miracle metaphors of healing, mentioned in the Bible, come in as a sign of our desperate spiritual condition. Hopeless and helpless like the infirmed, the leprous, the widow, and the orphan, Jesus rescues us from our plight. We cannot stand before a holy God in our sins with any hope of gaining heaven. Through the crucifixion, Jesus served as our stand-in. God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we may become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

     That whoever believes in Him. It’s all done by faith. You can’t earn it. You don’t deserve it. All you can do is accept it as a free gift from God. But what is this faith? First and foremost, it’s the assent to the facts of the Bible that Jesus was crucified and took the punishment of your sin on Himself. His resurrection on Easter Sunday proves that He was successful in His mission. He offers heaven and eternal life to all that would receive His sacrifice as substitute for their sin. But, it’s not just agreeing with the facts alone that gets you into heaven. Satan knows the facts and they’re not doing him any good. Faith goes deeper still. You have to totally identify with Jesus, which means that you must see yourself up on the cross with Jesus spiritually facing God for your sins. When Jesus rises on Easter Sunday, you also resurrect with Him, spiritually. You are now spiritually born again to a new life in Christ. As Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20). Saving faith is hard to explain. All I can say is that you have a “knowing” about it. I examine it in another way in my article “A Sacramental Illustration of Saving Faith” in the Insights section of this blog. Check it out. Now, get ready for the bad news.

     Should not perish. That means going to hell. The Bible places you under the sentence of hell right now. Whatever hell is: a lake of fire, separation from God, death forever, all the above. It is bad and it is final! God is holy. God will not mark on a curve where He lets you slide into heaven with a 51% good rating. The standard for heaven is sinless perfection. You cannot achieve it. If there was any other way to escape damnation other than the cross of Christ, then God would have released Jesus from His passion when He asked for options at the garden of Gethsemane. But, because He did go to the cross, Jesus now becomes YOUR option. Take Him as your Savior for: “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation” (Hebrews 2:3a).

     Have everlasting life. Jesus Christ didn’t come to make bad people good or to make good people better. Jesus came to make dead people alive! In Christ, we are born again to a new life here on earth and to eternal life in heaven. This is the gospel: by faith take the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as payment for your sins and make God the master of your new life on earth as you prepare for heaven. Take God up on His offer of salvation through Jesus, today.  “…by His wounds, we are healed” (Isaiah 53.5).